Did you ever wonder why there were so many John and
Winifred names among Jan Pieters Sjoeks and Wytske Roelofs Hoogland's grandchildren?
Or why all of their children had the same middle name? Was it devotion to
parents, custom or tradition? Probably it was some of each.

Until recent generations Dutch parents named their first son after the father's
father. Thus Jan and Wytske's first son was named Pieter after Jan's father.
The second son was traditionally named after the mother's father. Roelof
Watzes Hoogland was Wytske's father. Roelof Jans was the second son of Jan
and Wytske. The third son would usually be named after the child's father
and so on down the line. If the father of each parent shared the same name,
such as John, then they could "kill two birds with one stone." Such was the
case with Pieter Jans Sjoeks and his wife, Anna Lavina Swart. Their father's
name was John. Thus, they named their first son, John. Following this unwritten
rule, some of Jan and Wytske's other sons also named one of their boys "John."

The first daughter was named after her father's mother. Doetje (Della), daughter
of Jan and Wytske, was named for Doetje Antonij Siccama, Jan's mother. The
second daughter was usually named after the mother's mother. In this case,
it would have been Trijntje (Katherine). But since Jan and Wytske only had
one daughter, they did not have the opportunity to use this name! And, because
Wytske (Winifred) was the mother of six boys there are lots of Winifreds
in the family.

The second or middle name of each child was the possessive form of the father's
first name minus the apostrophe. This was done to clarify to whom that particular
child belonged. Notice that all of Jan and Wytske's children except Sylvester,
who was born in the United States, had a second name of Jans, since they
were Jan's children. This was supposed to avoid any confusion but maybe it
just added to it!

Hopefully, this helps to explain the presence of specific names occurring
so frequently in our family tree.
The above story was submitted by Janet Shooks Dean. Information was obtained
through conversations with relatives over the years and by researching our
Dutch family trees.